You know when you're building a fire, you want to go wood-air-wood-air-wood-air? Pine cones have that structure ready made. Plus they don't soak up moisture; you can pick them.off the ground after a rain, and they're dry enough to burn. Plus also they are small enough that they require no chopping, unlike other t firewood.

I made pine come fire starters as a kid for the fireplace. We melted wax into a tart tin, the small ruffle kind of tin, let it set a couple minutes, stuck a wick in the side and placed the pinecone on into the center. They set overnight and you just light the wick and you are good to go. You put it on top of your wood and the wax melts onto the wood to build the fire.

Edit: We used small pinecones that were about 2 inches tall and the tin was the width of a cupcake paper. You don't want to go any bigger than that though when I googled them, they look way too big and dangerous. You can't use too much wax